Posts Tagged ‘xinjiang’

Xinjiang’s April 23 Clash the Worst in Province since July 2009

Posted: May 28, 2013 in China Brief
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And more late posting, this time a piece I wrote for Jamestown’s China Brief looking at the recent grim events in Xinjiang. A topic that is only going to become more relevant as time goes on given the depth of tensions. Of course, this all also feeds into the larger project I am working on looking at China in Central Asia.

Xinjiang’s April 23 Clash the Worst in Province since July 2009

Publication: China Brief Volume: 13 Issue: 11
May 23, 2013 04:16 PM Age: 4 days

A People’s Armed Police Patrol in Xinjiang, from here

On April 24, reports emerged from Xinjiang that 21 people had been killed in what was reported as a “terrorist clash” in Bachu County, Kashgar Prefecture (Xinhua, April 24). The incident came as U.S. Ambassador to Beijing Gary Locke was undertaking the first visit to the province by a senior U.S. delegation in 20 years as part of Beijing’s push to attract foreign investment to the province (Xinjiang Daily, April 25). The juxtaposition of the two events highlighted Beijing’s persistent difficulties in taming the province’s tensions. They call into question Beijing’s economics-based strategy while illustrating the ongoing questions about the drivers of radicalization in the province.

Initial descriptions about the events in Selibuya village in Bachu County (also known as Maralbexi) just outside Kashgar, suggested the incident was the product of a “violent clash between suspected terrorists and authorities” (Xinhua, April 24). Three community workers were described as entering a property and finding suspicious individuals with knives. They managed to alert others, but were killed before help could arrive. This lead to a larger clash in which a total of 15 police and community workers were killed while six so-called “mobsters” were shot to death (Xinjiang Daily, April 24; Shanghai Daily, April 24). The 15 dead were heralded later as “martyrs” and identified by their ethnicities as 10 Uighur, three Han and two Mongolians (Xinhua, April 29). Grim pictures released in the days after the funerals seemed to show females identified as cadres with their throats slit (CCTV13, April 30).

Xinjiang government spokeswoman Hou Hanmin quickly blamed the incident as being the work of terrorists (Reuters, April 24). Two days later after U.S. State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell refused to call it terrorism, an editorial lashed out at U.S.  “double standards,” something felt all the more keenly in the wake of the Boston bombings in which a Chinese student was killed (Xinhua, April 26). A few days later, security forces announced they had arrested a further 11 suspects for involvement in the incident, bringing the total number of captured individuals to 19 (Xinhua, April 29). In making this announcement, the government laid out its claim that they had disrupted a terrorist cell headed by Qasim Muhammat (also spelt Kasmu Memet) that had been founded in September 2012 and was in the process of planning “something big” this summer in Kashgar (Xinhua, April 29). The group allegedly would gather at cell member Muhanmetemin Barat’s house where they would do physical training, watch extremist videos, read the Koran and practice making explosives (Xinhua, April 29). The group was in the process of making explosives at the house when the three community workers came visiting leading to the incident (Xinhua, April 29).

According to an official timeline released by the government, one of the members of the cell, Musar Aisanjon, had first come to security officials’ attention in July 2007 when he was questioned by authorities linked to unspecified charges. Three years later, he is alleged to have met Qasim Muhammat, who subsequently went on to recruit the other members of the cell (China Daily, April 30). By September 2012, the group was formed and under Qasim’s lead were gathering regularly to train, listen and watch radical material and make knives. By the time of the incident, they allegedly had tested explosives five times. When authorities subsequently raided the properties, they uncovered knives, combat training equipment, illegal religious material and three jihadist flags along with at least one identified as being an “East Turkestan” banner (Xinhua, April 29; China Daily, April 30). Nevertheless, a few days later spokeswoman Huo Hanmin went on record saying that the incident and individuals involved “had no connection with foreign forces” in contrast to many previous incidents where external influences were blamed (China Daily, May 2).

This official version of events was disputed remotely by dissident groups through Radio Free Asia, where they called for independent coverage of the story (RFA, May 3). A BBC crew was able to get to Selibuya and spoke to locals who said a family that was at the center of the clash had “a long-standing dispute with officials.” Apparently very religious, the family was under pressure to shave their beards and for their women to unveil themselves—something that was apparently in accordance with local laws. The family refused and something snapped on April 23 leading to the brutal incident (BBC, April 26). Little of this account beyond the end result was corroborated by official Chinese reports, leaving observers in the usual frustrating state of confusion when observing such incidents in Xinjiang.

Waters were further muddied when RFA—citing Uighur websites, local sources and dissident groups—reported that there had been a further incident in Hotan, Xinjiang during which two more community workers were killed and three cars burned in an incident sparked off by clampdowns in the wake of the Selibuya deaths (RFA, April 26). No further information has emerged about this incident. Other incidents reported by RFA in subsequent days (and not corroborated elsewhere) showed tensions between Uighur and Han across the country. One report indicated there had been a clash between Uighur and Han students at Beijing’s Minorities University leading to the authorities separating the two communities on campus (RFA, April 29). Meanwhile in Shanghai, a group of Uighur women protesting their being banned from selling products outside the Changde Lu Mosque, reportedly were moved along violently by local authorities (RFA, May 3). It is unclear if there is any connection between all of these events and whether these are anything more than usual intra-ethnic tensions. They do, however, highlight a persistent issue.

A contact in Kashgar at around the time of the incident reported no particular local coverage of events, with locals suggesting they return to Urumqi rather than press on toward the borders near Kashgar. Another report indicated that the government had re-issued laws regulating possession of SIM cards in the region (RFA, April 30). Such laws had been issued previously in conjunction with other rioting when it was believed that dissemination of pictures of Han or Uighur brutality against each other had exacerbated tensions. By having people registering SIM cards against ID cards, the belief was that individuals could be tracked.

While possibly sensible from a security surveillance perspective, such measures are impediments to rapid transfer of information. Something that when taken in conjunction with the confusion that permeates the official accounts of the events in Selibuya suggests that the government is going to continue to have a difficult time in attracting the external investment that it is looking for to develop the province. External investors will be both alarmed by the security situation, but also the heavily watched environment and the impediments to obtain SIM cards.

According to 2012 trade figures, during the first 11 months of 2012, Xinjiang attracted some $396 million in foreign direct investment (FDI)—a figure up 30.8 percent year-on-year—but still paltry when put in the context of the $100.02 billion that China overall attracted during the same period (Xinhua, December 21, 2012). Eager to attract foreign firms, the Xinjiang government has been proactive in bringing foreign companies out to the province. It has signed a cooperation agreement with the Confederation of British Industry (CBI); Volkswagen has established a joint venture car factory outside Urumqi; French waste management firm Veolia is taking on the modernization of Urumqi’s wastewater infrastructure; Coca-Cola is opening a plant in the province with its bottling partner Cofco; IBM is working with authorities in Karamay to develop a “smart city”; Danish wind power manufacturer LM Glasfiber setting up a factory in the Urumqi Economic and Technological Development Zone; and Turkey signed an agreement in 2011 to develop a Sino-Turkish Development Park outside Urumqi (www.cbi.org.uk, January 28; China Daily, November 14, 2012; South China Morning Post, April 3, 2012; China Daily, August 16, 2011; http://www.finance.veolia.com, September 1, 2005). More recently, the U.S. delegation visiting with Ambassador Locke had representatives from GE, the Aluminium Company of America (Alcoa), DuPont, Cummins and Peabody Energy Corporation (Xinjiang Daily, April 25).

All of this activity, however, does not seem to be translating into a huge pay-off on the ground as external investment remains relatively low. Foreign firms wonder about the prospects in the wake of incidents like that in Selibuya as well as practical concerns like the province’s still underdeveloped infrastructure and its distance from any bodies of water or markets. The annual China-Eurasia Expo held in Urumqi in September, for example, is intended as a further FDI booster, but most of the deals done are between Chinese firms. During the 2011 Expo, $29.14 billion in deals were signed with Chinese firms versus $5.5 billion in foreign trade contracts (Xinhua, September 3, 2012).

What does seem to have changed, however, is the government’s willingness to blame incidents like that in Selibuya on outside actors (something attested to by Huo Hanmin’s earlier clarifications). In a number of discussions over the past year, the author has heard Chinese scholars suggest that incidents in Xinjiang are at root domestic problems rather than external ones [2]. Xinjiang Party Secretary Zhang Chunxian published an article in Seeking Truth following the wake of the Bachu incident in which he laid out the current context and strategy for developing Xinjiang. Hinting at a slight adjustment in the degree to which authorities are eager to blame outside forces, Zhang described the security problems in terms of social stability and development rather than blaming foreign elements (Qiushi, May 16). In keeping with the reported paranoia of the security services, an anonymous Xinjiang security official, however, said “The ‘three evil forces’ of separatism, extremism and terrorism have long been using mobile phones and the Internet to incite terrorist attacks in China” (Xinhua, May 17). The party secretary’s article stands in contrast to statements in response to previous incidents where outside groups were accused of directing plotters and infiltrating operatives.

Further confusing matters, at around the time of the incident, the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP) released its latest batch of videos through Islam Awazi, including one in which a now believed dead senior al Qaeda ideologue, Abu Zaid al-Kuwaiti provides “advice for the Muslims of East Turkestan” (jihadology.net, May 4). At no point in these videos is there any mention of recent incidents in Xinjiang or of any specific direct threats against targets in China. Something suggestive of a disconnect between what Uighur groups operate in Waziristan and their ethnic brethren in Xinjiang. The narrative of this incident further emphases this discontent, pointing in the direction of being a domestic clash with no external instigation.

The fact that government has chosen to release such detailed information about this incident would suggest an effort to get their side out with as much detail and openness as possible. This reflects the growing desire of propagandists to have official government bureaus be the most authoritative source on breaking events (Study Times, May 6). This public relations approach seems to be part of a broader effort to shift the messaging about who is to blame for such incidents. Who this is directed at, however, is unclear: the international community, Chinese residents elsewhere in the country or residents of Xinjiang? Whichever the case, given their previous history of opacity and conflicting views from the ground, much more still needs to be done for Beijing’s views on events in Xinjiang to be taken at face value.

Notes:

  1. Author’s Communication with Foreign Visitor in Kashgar, April 24, 2013.
  2. This is a perspective the author has heard at conferences at official think tanks in Beijing and Shanghai and has been corroborated by other foreign scholars in discussions with Chinese experts looking at terrorism questions and South Asia.

China’s Leadership Opportunity in Afghanistan

Posted: April 7, 2013 in Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
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A new article for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think tank with offices around the globe. It focuses on China in Afghanistan and is part of a series being directed out of their Beijing office looking at giving China advice for the coming year in foreign policy. The piece has already been re-printed in the Diplomat and I believe may be being re-published on East Asia Forum. I also want to use this opportunity to highlight this piece in the Russian Penza news which I did an interview for, here it is in English and Russian. For more of my work on this part of the world, check out China in Central Asia that I co-edit with Alex.

China’s Leadership Opportunity in Afghanistan

The 2014 deadline for the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan is fast approaching. China has just over a year before Afghanistan fades from the West’s radar and Western attention toward the country shrinks substantially. However, it is not clear that Beijing has properly considered what it is going to do once NATO forces leave and pass the responsibility for Afghan stability and security to local forces.

And more crucially, it is not clear that China has thought about what it can do with the significant economic leverage it wields in the region. Afghanistan offers China the opportunity to show the world it is a responsible global leader that is not wholly reliant on others to assure its regional interests.

Traditionally, Chinese thinkers have considered Afghanistan the “graveyard of empires.” They chuckle at the ill-advised American-led NATO effort and point to British and Soviet experiences fighting wars in Afghanistan.

But in reality, the presence of NATO forces provided China with a sense of stability. Beijing correctly assumed that NATO’s presence in Afghanistan would mean regional terrorist networks would remain focused on attacking Alliance forces rather than stirring up trouble in neighboring countries like China. NATO’s targeting of Islamist groups also had the effect of striking anti-Chinese Uighur groups that had sought refuge in Afghanistan under the protection of the Taliban or al-Qaeda. These Uighur groups would otherwise have focused their attention on targeting China.

Yet as the date of American withdrawal from Afghanistan approaches, this security dynamic is changing. While China does worry about the threat of Islamist Uighur groups striking from their Afghan bases, this concern is relatively marginal. The bigger problem is the potentially negative repercussions for the rising number of investments from China’s private sector in Afghanistan and its surrounding region. These investments are part of a broader push into Central Asia that flows from an effort to develop China’s historically underdeveloped province of Xinjiang, which borders Afghanistan.

The prospect of an Afghanistan returning to chaos is, therefore, not appealing to policymakers and businesspeople in Beijing. This scenario would bring instability directly to China’s doorstep, and this instability could potentially expand northward into Central Asia or southward into Pakistan. China would suffer from further chaos in either direction.

The solution to this problem is complex. China is not necessarily expected to invest heavily in security efforts and rebuilding Afghanistan’s security apparatus, though some more substantial contribution in this direction than the offer to train a nominal 300 policemen that China made last year in Kabul would be helpful. Rather, China could focus on what it is able to do best: invest in Afghanistan and develop its abundant natural resources.

Chinese state-owned firms have already invested in oil fields in Amu Darya in northern Afghanistan and a copper mine in Mes Aynak, southeast of Kabul. These investments have had mixed success.

Amu Darya has produced for the China National Petroleum Company (CNPC), though its current status is unknown. Problems and uncertainty with China’s investments in Central Asia are reflected in the difficulties of two other Chinese companies—the Metallurgical Corporation of China (MCC) and Jiangxi Copper—in the south.

In part this is because companies operating in the south face understandable security concerns that range from locals angry because they feel they were not justly compensated for their land that was affected by the mine to Taliban-affiliated groups eager to punish the central government by undermining efforts to develop the country.

But these companies also often find they lack a full understanding of the environment in which they are trying to invest. Orchestrators of projects that begin with the best of intentions and large investments, like the Mes Aynak mine, find themselves burdened with a local government response that is confused. Confusion turns to anger when these projects fail to deliver elements that were supposedly included in the original contract. For example, the local Afghan government initially believed that MCC and Jiangxi Copper would build a train line in the south. But the companies claim the contract only stipulated it would conduct a feasibility study. They also claim that the security situation has driven Chinese workers to refuse to work on the site, though reports about whether these stoppages are actually occurring are unclear.

The difficulty of this deal contrasts with the rapidity with which Chinese energy giant CNPC was able to bring online the oil field in Amu Darya. Political complications with the local Afghan strongman Rashid Dostum have held up work, and it is not clear that they have been completely resolved. The field has produced some oil that was transported across the border by truck into Turkmenistan, where it is refined at a separate CNPC site. The company has also said that it is going to develop a refinery in Afghanistan to help facilitate Afghan energy independence.

These two projects show the potential benefits and downsides to investing in Afghanistan. Large mining projects like these have the potential to be help rebuild parts of Afghanistan and transform the economy from one that is reliant on the drug trade and foreign aid to self-reliance.

Even if they were all successful, Chinese investments alone would not transform Afghanistan into a stable and prosperous state. China also needs to leverage its power within the region and persuade other countries to engage in Afghanistan in order to complete this transformation. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a regional entity led by China, has done very little in Afghanistan due to a lack of agreement among members about what exactly actions to take. China believes the SCO should do more, but other member countries believe a bilateral approach is better that a multilateral one and that focusing on building individual relationships in Afghanistan will help strengthen their particular interests. This is unfortunate as the SCO could be a useful vehicle through which China and other regional actors could undertake efforts to counter the narcotics trade in the region and strengthen border controls.

China has growing influence in the Asian Development Bank, which has already invested heavily in Afghanistan. China could continue its support for these projects to help connect Afghanistan to the broader region and reintegrate the nation into the global community, thus fostering stability. This approach complements China’s broader regional strategy to develop Xinjiang into the “gateway for Eurasia” as Premier Wen Jiabao put it during the China-Eurasia Expo in September last year.

And at the social level, China needs to foster person-to-person contact with Afghanistan. Last year during a visit to Kabul, the most striking characteristic of Kabul University’s Confucius Institute—one of the Beijing-backed centers that promote Chinese language and culture across the world—was the absence of Chinese teachers and Afghan students. This stood in contrast to other Confucius Institutes in Central Asia with dozens of students crowding around excited teachers. The security situation undoubtedly complicates things in Kabul, but there are safer parts of the country in which to operate. To further encourage societal ties, Beijing could try to entice more Afghans to study and work in China through scholarships and study grants.

China has an opportunity in the next year to assert some leadership in helping steer Afghanistan in a more positive direction. A stable Afghanistan is in China’s national interest, and taking the lead on this regional issue of international importance could help bolster Beijing’s global position. The West may have made mistakes in Afghanistan’s past, and making up for them will undoubtedly take time. But the Afghanistan problem is one that remains on China’s borders and has the potential to result in even more regional instability. Investing in Afghanistan now will save years of trouble later.

Raffaello Pantucci is a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and the co-editor of http://www.chinaincentralasia.com.

Horse To Water

Posted: March 17, 2013 in Caravan
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A new piece for the latest issue of Caravan magazine, an excellent Indian publication that I would highly recommend. The piece is an evolution of a blogpost that we did for the China in Central Asia site a while ago, and of course part of the bigger project on the subject that Alex and myself are working on with Sue Anne helping us document it visually.

Horse to Water

China’s first faltering steps towards building trade links with Uzbekistan

By RAFFAELLO PANTUCCI | 1 March 2013

SUE ANNE TAY
At the 2012 Uzbekistan Tashkent China Xinjiang Business and Trade Fair, an Uzbek visitor photographs a scale model of a Chinese cotton-picking machine.
On a flight from Beijing to Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, Sue Anne Tay, the photographer with whom I visited Tashkent in May last year, ran into a group of businessmen from China’s Xinjiang region. They were on a government-sponsored trip to the “Uzbekistan Tashkent China Xinjiang Business and Trade Fair” in Tashkent, to help build relations between Xinjiang and the neighbouring countries as part of an economic strategy laid out by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. As he put it, China wants to “make Xinjiang a gateway for mutually beneficial cooperation between China and other Eurasian countries”.

Unfortunately for this group of businessmen, they had to take a circuitous route to get through this gate. Because of a lack of direct flights from Urumqi to Tashkent at the time, they had been forced to re-route rather inconveniently through Beijing—a five-hour flight south-east followed by a six-hour flight west. In retrospect, the businessmen’s long trip was emblematic of difficulties they later faced in Tashkent.

We ran into them the next evening at a market in a small park behind a statue of Amir Timur, the 14th-century Asian emperor, in the centre of Tashkent. In the cool evening, traders, painters and other craftsmen had gathered to ply their wares to tourists. Some of the Chinese businessmen were getting their portraits drawn, frustrating the Soviet-trained draftsmen by constantly shifting to smoke cigarettes.

One businessman was intrigued by stalls set up near the artists. A forthright man with a flattop haircut typical of many middle-aged Chinese traders who have little time for the niceties of fashion, he had come to Tashkent to sell his food products to local traders. He was a natural leader, with the robust confidence of someone from a tough frontier province, which made his fascination at the outdoor market with faux vintage Soviet cameras all the more odd. Turning them over in his hands, he remarked on how authentic they were; I couldn’t help but think they had been made, like so many things in this world, in China. Using broken English, gestures, and my assistance as a Chinese–English translator, he proudly bargained down the cost of two cameras to $15.

Two days later, at the expo, this gentleman and the other Chinese businessmen were the sellers, trying to win over Uzbek customers for their products. Sponsored by the Xinjiang government, the expo was part of the Chinese autonomous region’s strategy to develop its economic ties with Central Asia. The companies represented all had operations in Xinjiang, though quite a few were from other provinces in China, such as Guangdong. This was also part of the central government’s strategy: richer eastern provinces were to give financial and other aid to their poorer counterparts and participate in the strategy of turning Xinjiang into a Eurasian gateway.

The expo, held in an exhibition hall in the northwestern corner of Tashkent, was underwhelming—a smattering of stalls were arranged in the centre of a much larger, imposing space, giving visitors the impression of being in a hangar. Sellers displayed everything from high-end power generation machinery and cotton-picking machines to uniforms (with a focus on the oil industry and military outfits), Uighur clothing, spices, sauces, car engine parts and electronics. Some exhibitors had carefully considered where they were travelling to—at one of the clothing stalls a sign proudly boasted that they sold ‘Turky Style clothing’, the unfortunate typo belying an attempt to tap into the Turkish-Uzbek ethnic connection. Another stall had a Chinese woman dressed up in what was supposed to be traditional ethnic Uighur attire, wearing a hat with what looked like a feather duster attached to it, as she tried to sell pillows, rugs, slippers and other homemade wool products. Compounding the hall’s feeling of emptiness was the thin crowd.

At one of the few stalls that were attracting a crowd, a Guangdong merchant selling electronics told me that his company “had been asked to invest in Xinjiang by the Guangdong government”. Having attended the expo before, he had an obvious edge over others and had had the foresight to bring along a Uighur salesman from his Urumqi office. Given Uighur and Uzbek are mutually intelligible languages, both spoken by Turkic peoples, the Uighur salesman was able to talk to curious locals and pitch them products. He proudly announced that the products on offer were all made in Xinjiang by Uighur workers, and told visitors to disregard the Guangdong branding. As proof, he pointed to the picture on a computer tablet box: a Google Android figure donning a hat of a style common to both Uighurs and Uzbeks.

Most others vendors had failed to bring someone who could communicate with locals; instead, the men sat around waiting for proceedings to end. At a stand trying to woo Uzbek companies to buy plots inside a new mall outside Xinjiang’s Kashgar city, one of the men who had had his picture drawn the night before was sitting with two of his colleagues. Bored and with no business prospects, they fiddled with mobile phones and remarked on how they, too, had been encouraged to come to Tashkent by the Guangdong government. (Although the trip had government sponsorship, they resentfully noted, they had to pay a fee to join.) It was only upon arrival that they realised Uzbekistan was an underdeveloped and poor market that was unlikely to have many companies eager to set up operations in China. “The Uzbek market is too small and low-income compared to the vast opportunities we have in Xinjiang,” said Tan Chao, a manufacturer of uniforms.

Dealing in goods of a vastly different scale, those manning the machinery companies’ stalls were less surprised by the slow foot traffic. At one stand, Liu Zhao, a cheery representative from a Siemens subsidiary that builds power stations, showed off a large model of a power substation. It had cost them somewhere in the region of 10,000 RMB (Rs 84,000) to ship the ping-pong table-sized model to Tashkent, a fraction of the money the company would make if it sold one, but he did not seem very optimistic about securing a sale. While my Chinese failed me as he went through the technical specifics of the project, he smiled pleasantly as he told me that people in Uzbekistan didn’t need products like the ones his company was offering, because “these people are at a very different stage of development”.

Soon after lunch, a local school was dismissed and there was a sudden influx of Uzbek children into the hall. The stall that particularly appealed to them was the one run by a company that made cotton-picking machines, a subsidiary of Chinese state-owned military aviation firm AVIC, which was hoping to tap the Uzbek cotton market, one of the top five in the world. But even the recent news that Xinjiang had set a cotton producing record was not helping their sales with locals, who apparently preferred American equipment. This left the Chinese businessmen to fight off eager children drawn not out of some financial stake in cotton, but rather by a large toy automobile that the company had sent along. The harassed vendors shooed away the children as they eagerly tried to play with the car, which was roughly the size of a microwave oven. Neither vendor spoke any Russian or Uzbek, but they had learned enough to say something approximating “no sale” to the young and old Uzbeks who pestered them to buy the model.

In the mid-afternoon, Duan Weiming, one of the clothiers, made a modest sale of some Western suits and received a down payment of a few hundred thousand in Uzbek som. Striding around gleefully with huge bundles of cash, he proclaimed that, given its lack of value, he would have no choice but to blow it all while he was in Uzbekistan—the Uzbek som is officially worth 1,800 per US dollar, but unofficially trades at around 2,800. When asked what he planned to spend it on, he responded, “Dinner, drinks and karaoke.” By 4 pm that day, the group at the expo concluded that the day was basically a write-off and that it was time to go home. Rounding everyone up, they hopped on a tour bus and went back to their hotel, enervated by the prospect of sitting through another day in the empty auditorium.

A few days later, over lunch with an Uzbek businessman whose company had helped sponsor the expo, we got a sense of how successful the whole enterprise had been. “Not very, to be honest, but better than last time,” he said. “More Chinese are coming.” A former government employee, he had seen the economic possibilities of China’s booming, dynamic manufacturing capabilities and had chosen to end a flourishing civil service career at a young age to go into business, with a focus on China. Though at the forefront of Sino-Uzbek relations, he was not optimistic about Xinjiang as the gateway for Central Asia. The province made low quality products and traders were, in fact, simply agents from elsewhere in China, he told us. But he admitted that the greater problem was the difficult business environment in Uzbekistan in general. Awkward red tape, worthless currency conversions and a political environment that took very careful manoeuvering meant that it did not matter how many trade fairs were held. “You can take a horse to water,” he told us, “but you cannot make it drink.” And with that his phone rang, dragging him off to do more business with China.

Turkey: Abandoning the EU for the SCO?

Posted: February 15, 2013 in Diplomat
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A new piece with Alex for The Diplomat, an excellent online magazine focused on mostly Asian affairs and strategy. This one looks particularly at Turkey’s recent public dalliance with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and highlights some of the problems inherent in that organization. Turkey’s role in Central Asia writ large is a fascinating one and the topic of much more research – more hopefully to come! In the meantime, I was quoted in this piece for another online magazine The International on China’s role in ‘New Iron Silk Road’ and Afghanistan. As ever, for more of mine and Alex’s work on the broader themes in these pieces, please see our co-authored blog: http://www.chinaincentralasia.com

Turkey: Abandoning the EU for the SCO?

February 15, 2013

By Raffaello Pantucci and Alexandros Petersen

Recent moves suggest Turkey could make a bid for entry into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. It would be a mistake.

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The European Union is in a rut. Its once-vaunted economy and “ever closer” integration is facing the tough challenges of a dogged recession and anti-EU sentiment in some of its most powerful member states. It is therefore perhaps not surprising that some EU aspirants appear lukewarm about their prospects and continued desire to join the club. For Turkey, probably the most unfairly spurned EU aspirant, it makes a lot of sense to at least explore alternatives.

After all, Turkey’s economy is booming – leaping from $614.6 billion in 2009 to $775 billion in 2011 (in current U.S. dollars) according to World Bank figures. Reflecting the country’s position at the global cross-roads, Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport international traffic more than doubled between the years 2006 and 2011. Last year alone its passenger volume increased by 20%, making it Europe’s 6th busiest airport. The country’s regional and global profile has grown since it first evinced a desire to join the EU. European leaders should only be surprised that Turkey has maintained its interest in the EU for so long.

However, even as it makes sense to decision-makers in Ankara to reconsider their relationship with the EU, it is not a strategically sound choice for Turkey to consider membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as an alternative. Already a ”dialogue partner” with the SCO, late last month, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that he had made an overture to Russian President Vladimir Putin about joining the SCO, stating “If we get into the SCO, we will say good-bye to the European Union. The Shanghai Five [former name of the SCO] is better — much more powerful.” Erdogan also noted that Turkey has more “common values” with the SCO member states.

The issue, however, is that the SCO remains a nascent organization that is still in the process of defining itself. Absorbing new members, or figuring out the protocols for new members to be formally acceded, is merely one of the many problems the SCO faces. The Organization’s security structures, including the unfortunate-acronym RATS Center [Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure], have yet to fully flesh out their purpose in advancing regional security in a very militarily tense region. Meanwhile, China continues to dominate the SCO’s economic agenda, including negotiations to establish an SCO Free Trade Area (FTA), an SCO Development Bank, and Beijing offering $10 billion in loans for member states. All of this alarms Russian strategists who see China encroaching on Moscow’s Central Asian interests. Nonetheless, all of this results in a minimal concrete presence, something we found first-hand as we travelled around Central Asia over the past year, finding little tangible evidence of the Organization’s footprint on the ground.

Further complicating matters, Turkey is not the only country that has expressed an interest in becoming a full member. In fact, Pakistani and Indian officials both said their countries were interested in becoming full-fledge members at the Prime Minister’s Summit in Bishkek last December. Iran too has expressed an interest in joining the organization, although Moscow recently said this would not be possible so long as Tehran remains under UN sanctions. All three countries currently languish as “observers,“ a status that Pakistan and India have held since 2005 and one that is considered superior to the ‘dialogue partnership’ that Turkey was only accorded last June. Still, both Pakistan and India – strategically important allies for China and Russia respectively – would undoubtedly feel put out were Turkey allowed to jump the queue.

None of this is to say that Turkey does not have a key role to play in Central Asia, the SCO’s primary area of operations. Waiting for visas in Bishkek, we found ourselves jostling with Turkish truckers getting visas to Kazakhstan, whilst in the city’s downtown, eager students at the Kyrgyz-Turkish Manas University told us how exciting it would be to visit Turkey. In neighboring Uzbekistan, our driver told us how he preferred to fly Turkish airlines and how convenient the country was linguistically. This ethnic proximity is something that China in particular has sought to cultivate – in April last year, Erdogan broke protocol when he started his Chinese trip with a stopover in Urumqi, capital of historically Turkic Uighur Xinjiang.

Eager to attract outside investment to encourage prosperity as a salve for ethnic tensions between Uighur and Han Chinese and historical underdevelopment, the Urumqi government has established a Turkish-Chinese trade park outside the city, offering Turkish investors favorable rates and support to develop businesses in the province. Turkey is clearly a significant regional player and its SCO “dialogue partner” status reflects this. But full membership is a step too far and one that seems out of whack with the Organization’s current trajectory.

Far more likely, Erdogan is hinting at a shift in orientation in frustration at the West’s relationship with his country. Europe has repeatedly proven an awkward partner and the United States has demonstrated little appetite to get overly involved in the problems that sit right on Turkey’s border. Aware of his nation’s geopolitical location at a global crossroads, Erdogan is highlighting that he has options.

Still, the reality is that joining the SCO would not heighten Turkey’s global stature or teach the West a lesson. U.S. and NATO policymakers keep an eye on the SCO, but none seriously view it as a strategic counterweight. In some respects, Western strategists have been far more eager than their Chinese counterparts about the possibility of an SCO role in stabilizing Afghanistan after Western combat forces depart in 2014. In the past year, the Organization has expressed some interest in doing more in Afghanistan, but it remains light years away from replacing NATO as a security guarantor.

As an ascendant power in Eurasia, Turkey may find it useful to keep in a toe in the SCO.  However, full membership is not in the offing.  And even if it were, Turkey’s decision-makers would quickly find that China’s multilateral cover for its bilateral engagement in Central Asia is still an empty shell.

Raffaello Pantucci is a Senior Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).  Dr. Alexandros Petersen is the author of The World Island: Eurasian Geopolitics and the Fate of the West and an Associate Professor at the American University of Central Asia.  Their joint research is available at www.chinaincentralasia.com.

Local needs matter more than imaginary struggles in Central Asia

Posted: December 18, 2012 in Global Times
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Another op-ed on Central Asia for the Global Times, one of China’s English dailies. This time focused on looking beyond Great Games in Central Asia.

Local needs matter more than imaginary struggles in Central Asia

Global Times | 2012-12-17 19:25:05

By Raffaello Pantucci

Last month, Russia was reportedly ready to provide weapons worth $1.1 billion to Kyrgyzstan and $200 million to Tajikistan along with a further $200 million in petroleum products. In early June, China offered $10 billion through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to Central Asia. India has been focusing on developing a strategic partnership with Tajikistan since September, while the US always develops a stronger relationship with Uzbekistan.

There is a sense that we are returning to the “Great Game” in Central Asia. But this focus on abstract theories misses hard realities on the ground. Outside powers invest in Central Asia to advance their individual national interests, not out of a strategy directed against other powers.

Russia has long been a primary supplier of military equipment to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan: The money that Russia is providing will buy Russian arms and will help bolster an industry at home. And Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have long been the weak regional security links, providing a path into the Commonwealth of Independent States directly from Afghanistan. Drugs from Afghanistan can flow along the porous Tajik-Afghan border and from there into Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia and ultimately Russia.

Similarly, were the security situation in neighboring Afghanistan to deteriorate, then other threats could use this path. This is why Russia is willing to spend money to help strengthen the Kyrgyz and Tajik militaries. Certainly, a desire to keep American bases out of its backyard plays into the decision, but direct security considerations are the priority.

China has taken a different approach to Central Asia, one that is focused on economic and trade relations. For China, the main focus is to develop the region’s links with the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region to help the underdeveloped Chinese region grow and become a hub for Eurasian trade. The result is a strategy focused on building roads and rail links, infrastructure to support local development, as well as investing in exploiting the region’s rich natural resources.

While China has expressed concern in security threats emanating from the region, it remains a timid security power in Central Asia with some participation at SCO exercises, bilateral interaction about specific security concerns and training missions in Afghanistan.

For the US, the major interest at the moment is developing a stronger relationship with Uzbekistan, something that is largely built around the 2014 exit strategy from Afghanistan. The US and Europe have little direct interest in Central Asia beyond a useful route in and out of Afghanistan.

India, Iran, Japan, South Korea, Pakistan and Turkey all express an interest in the region, but have less to work with. Each one sees Central Asia through a slightly different lens, but all are ultimately interested in trying to strengthen their economic relations with the region.

And all of this discussion of outside powers forgets that Central Asians too have a seat at this table. As relatively poor countries that are still in a development phase, they frankly welcome the outside attention bringing them investment that they desperately need.

This is particularly true of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, which unlike their other Central Asian partners lack abundant natural resources.

So when Russia comes and offers them substantial assistance, they are going to take it, in much the same way that regional leaders signaled their support for China’s policy toward the region when they attended September’s China-Eurasia Expo in Urumqi. Their hope was to be seen supporting China’s push to develop Xinjiang into the gateway for Eurasia and to see how they could also do well out of this approach.

Focusing single mindedly on the struggle between great powers in Central Asia often misses important details. Doubtless, regional geostrategy plays to some degree into Moscow’s considerations when providing weapons to Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, but there are equally immediate security concerns at play.

China’s rising profile in the region may make it look like the increasingly dominant power, but this is something that is taking place as a result of an intensive focus from China on the “develop the west” strategy.

The “Great Game” in Central Asia should be left in the past as we focus on the very real problems that exist in the region.

The author is a visiting scholar at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn

A Post-Mortem Analysis of Turkestani Emir Emeti Yakuf: A Death that Sparked More Questions than Answers

Posted: November 1, 2012 in Terrorism Monitor
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A new piece for Jamestown’s Militant Leadership Monitor that unfortunately lives behind a paywall so I cannot simply post it here. However, they did send it out with their daily email update about the journal, so drop me a note if you are interested and I can try to forward you that. A very difficult piece to pull together given lack of data and confusion over who is who. I would also like to thank Jake for taking the time to read a draft and giving me some thoughts, he also pointed out that apparently local analysts have stated that Yakuf was also known as Abdul Shakoor Turkistani – something that confuses matters a great deal. It is also odd to note how there has been no mention of any of these losses in the spate of recent TIP publications (that can be found at the excellent Jihadology)

A Post-Mortem Analysis of Turkestani Emir Emeti Yakuf: A Death that Sparked More Questions than Answers

Publication: Militant Leadership Monitor
Volume: 3 Issue: 10
October 31, 2012 06:04 PM Age: 1 hrs

Emeti Yakuf (Ministry of Public Security, People’s Republic of China)

In late August, a series of drone strikes in Northern Waziristan were reported to have killed a number of jihadist leaders. Most media attention focused on the possible demise of Badruddin Haqqani, son of the fabled mujahedeen leader, with conflicting reports about whether he had died or not. Almost as an afterthought, some of the stories highlighted that the strikes were believed to have also killed Emeti Yakuf, the current leader of the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP) (Dawn, August 24). This overshadowed death reflected the generally low profile that TIP is often given amongst jihadist groups, and highlighted once again the difficulties in obtaining information about the mysterious China-focused terrorist organization.

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Xinjiang: struggle to revive Silk Road

Posted: September 15, 2012 in Financial Times
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Been unable to access this for a while, so catching up a bit on posting. This is a new one for an outlet I am quite pleased with, the Financial Times Beyond Brics blog. Looks at the 2nd China Eurasia Expo that I went to out in Urumqi, Xinjiang. More on that to come as part of my ongoing China in Central Asia work.

Xinjiang: Struggle to Revive Silk Road

September 4, 2012 10:41 am by beyondbrics

Picture from here

By Raffaello Pantucci

What do  you do about attracting investment if you are a remote corner of China, best-known internationally for your ethnic tensions?

If you are Xinjiang, you invest heavily in a blockbuster economic exhibition. Urumqi is this week hosting its second annual China-Eurasia Expo, opened this year by premier Wen Jiabao, a clear upgrade from last year’s star host, vice premier Li Keqiang.

Leaders and/or ministers from seven countries flew in, giving credence to Wen’s claim that the Expo aimed ‘to build a new bridge of friendship and cooperation across the Eurasian continent…and make Xinjiang a gateway.’ But it’s along way from prime ministerial declarations to the investment that Xinjiang badly needs.

The ‘China-Eurasia Expo’ with its cheery mascot – the animated horse Xinxin – is an evolution from the more cumbersomely named ‘Urumqi Foreign Economic Relations and Trade Fair’ that was held annually since September 1992. Upgraded to a more grandiose Expo as part of a raft of policies to try to help the province economically in the wake of brutal rioting in Urumqi in 2009 that claimed more than 200 lives, the event is part of a push to help build the region’s foreign trade links.

From outside China, Volkswagen has invested some €170m ($225m) into building a new production plant outside Urumqi. Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn told reporters in January that they had been approached by Beijing to develop the plant in the region alongside their local partner SAIC.

The plan is for the plant to start production in 2015 with a target output of 50,000 cars a year.

VW joins a growing list of Chinese vehicle companies that have established plants in the region. The hope for VW is to reach the growing central Asian markets as well as the domestic Xinjiang market: in Urumqi alone the numbers of cars on the road doubled from 2009 to 2011 from 200,000 to 400,000.

According to Chinese customs figures, cross-border trade in vehicles with central Asia stood at $680m in 2011 – though over 80 per cent of this was in heavy trucks.

China is also eagerly courting Turkish investment – showcased at the Expo by the appearance of economic minister Ali Babacan. Turkey’s cultural proximity to the restive Uighur Turkic minority (the languages are mutually comprehensible) has led China to encourage Turkish investment in the hope it will be seen in a less suspicious light by locals who resent the Han Chinese presence in the province.

Key to this is the establishment of a Turkish-Chinese Industrial Park in Urumqi, which was first agreed in April 2011 between Turkish and Xinjiang trade officials. Located just south of Urumqi and offering low tax rates and financial support to encourage development, the park aims to attract Turkish textiles and food producers. Babacan said in his presentation that Turkey wanted to contribute to regional development and that he hoped to see a ‘new Silk Road from Istanbul to Beijing.’

Beijing’s aim is not just to draw in investors, but also to tie Xinjiang into a broader region through a network of roads, rail links and Special Economic Zones (SEZs) aimed at increasing the volume of trade between the province and central Asia.

Established in Kashgar and Khorogos (a border post with Kazakhstan) the uncompleted SEZs are key nodes in a recently-built network of roads and rail radiating out from Kashgar to Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and from Urumqi north to Kazakhstan.

Xinjiang recorded 10.7 per cent economic growth in the first half of 2012, 2.9 percentage points higher than the national growth rate, according to local officials. But it’s moving from a low base, in terms of income and investment levels.

There are limits to Expo’s ability to attract foreign investment. According to official figures $29.14bn of domestic investment was attracted through last year’s show, compared to only $5.5bn from abroad.

As well its domestic challenges, Xinjiang is hampered by the shortcomings of the generally underdeveloped countries in the surrounding region. Central Asian economies are remote and still farily poor,  while Afghanistan and Pakistan suffer from violence and instability.

Official figures for the first six months of 2012 show that Xinjiang’s foreign trade stood at $9.82 bn ($7.29 bn in exports and $2.53bn in imports), a year-on-year increase of 9.2 per cent. That was better than the national average of 7.8 per cent, but the growth rate was substantially slower than last year’s 33 per cent for the whole of 2011.

About 78 per cent of this trade was with the five central Asian countries (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) – meaning Xinjiang is reliant on trade growth with a region replete with serious problems. Something the fanfare of an international Expo is unlikely to change.

Raffaello Pantucci, is a visiting scholar at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences (SASS)

 

Borderlands

Posted: September 1, 2012 in Caravan
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A short letter from the road for a new outlet, the excellent Indian magazine Caravan that I have only recently discovered. Written with Alex, it is part of our work on China in Central Asia, though focused rather more heavily on the Chinese side of the border. A lot more of this to come, including a few longer pieces that will take a bit longer to get out. The picture is courtesy the lovely Miss Tay.

Letters from: Xinjiang

Borderlands

Along the road to China’s closest strategic partner

by Raffaello Pantucci and Alexandros Petersen | Published September 1, 2012

A Kyrgyz guide takes his horse for a drink in Lake Karakul, roughly halfway between Kashgar, in the Chinese autonomous region of Xinjiang, and the Pakistan border. By Sue Anne Tay

On paper, the Karakoram Highway stretches from Kashgar in China’s far western province of Xinjiang to Islamabad. In reality, it unfolds like a ribbon across China’s westernmost border before its tarmac comes to an abrupt halt at the Khunjerab Pass on Pakistan’s border – the highest spot on the world’s highest paved international highway. China scholars often point out that domestic concerns colour Beijing’s foreign relations, but the multifarious stops and diverse communities along the Karakoram reveal that China’s domestic concerns are anything but uniform.

Our journey starts in Ürümqi, a grubby metropolis of more than 2.3 million people that looks like many other second- or third-tier Chinese cities. Large boulevards cluttered with imposing buildings are filled with frenetic construction as the city rushes to erect more shopping malls to appease insatiable local consumers. As the capital of an autonomous region which is China’s largest political subdivision, and home to a substantial portion of China’s natural wealth, it is also a draw for poor fortune-seekers from neighbouring provinces. A taxi driver from the adjacent province of Gansu boasted how opportunities in Ürümqi are plentiful, with girlfriends to match—one for each day of the week.

The driver who picked us up in Kashgar, about 1,000 km south of Ürümqi, had a very different story to tell. A local Uyghur who had developed a substantial business in the region, he complained instead about the ineptitude of the local police as he pointed to the visibly heavy security around the airport. Kashgar distinguishes itself as majority Uyghur—the Turkic ethnic group that claims to be the original inhabitants of the territory that is Xinjiang. Traditional Uyghur culture and history is perceivable at every turn. The Id Kah Mosque, the largest in China, sits on the edge of what is left of Kashgar’s old town, a warren of mud-brick houses reminiscent of Kabul or the dusty trading centres of Central Asia.

But the Han presence in the city is becoming increasingly visible. In the wake of violent clashes between Han and Uyghur that claimed more than 200 lives in 2009, the government in Beijing called for a reordering of its strategy towards the underdeveloped region. Part of this was the designation of Kashgar as a Special Economic Zone in May 2010, and the command that more prosperous provinces in China aid in developing Xinjiang. Shanghai, for example, is responsible for four areas within Kashgar Prefecture. But the most visible aspect of this partnership can be found on the first part of the Karakoram Highway on the way out of Kashgar. Immense construction sites with names of Guangzhou (formerly Canton) companies fill either side of the road with large billboards advertising the modern wonders to come. One high-class establishment advertises a luxury experience complete with an English butler service. Another artful rendering of a shopping mecca under construction was surrounded by a list of the famous Western brands soon to be on offer.

Our Uyghur driver was a younger chap still trying to find his way in the world, preoccupied with the demographic shift likely to come with the construction. According to his figures, some 600,000 Han were expected to flood in, overwhelming the Uyghur population and changing the face of Kashgar. The reality of such numbers is impossible to confirm, but watching carts pulled by donkeys hauling farmers and their wares to and from the city in front of these billboards, there is a sense of the rapid, monumental change underway. For Han moving out here to escape poverty in China’s interior or the crowded southern provinces, this change represents a new beginning. For our Uyghur driver, it is an ominous symbol of cultural erasure.

According to Chinese officials, the end goal of this construction is far less menacing than it seems. The current policy, they say, is directed at connecting one of China’s less developed regions to the country’s regional neighbours—the hope being that trade will bring prosperity and soothe some of the tensions so often on display between the various communities in the province. This means revitalising Kashgar’s historical role as a key trade hub on the old Silk Road, 35 years after the Karakoram Highway opened up a direct route to Pakistan.

As we continued along the highway, the presence of China’s regional neighbours became more visible. Opal, a small hamlet about 60 km southwest of Kashgar, is a dusty crossroads with fruit-sellers and donkey carts whose main claim to celebrity is the mausoleum of Mahmud al-Kashgari, the Turkic languages’ own Samuel Johnson. Born in Kashgar in 1005 AD, al-Kashgari studied in Baghdad and drew up not only the first Turkic dictionary, but also the first known map of the areas inhabited by Turkic peoples. Today he rests down a beaten track off Opal’s main thoroughfare. His statue stands in front of a weather-beaten museum. The grim-faced Uyghur guard looked up from her knitting to tell us not to take pictures as we enjoyed its limited pleasures. Al-Kashgari’s mausoleum is a whitewashed 1980s renovation watching over a vast mud cemetery with the Kunlun Mountains barely visible in the distance veiled by a sudden dust storm.

Along the side of the road leaving Opal, set apart from the desolate landscape of scrub and red-clay mountains and near one of the occasional open-pit mines that reveal the natural wealth of the province, a group of coal miners watched as one of them packed up to leave. Their faces were haggard and stained with soot. One burly Qinghai-native complained about the bad working conditions as a Yunnanese family gathered their belongings for a bus ride to Kashgar and then on to Ürümqi, where they hoped better times awaited them. Our Uyghur driver, too, had thoughts of leaving. He had been trying to find a way to move to Turkey, he told us, where he hoped that the chance of a common ethnicity would help open doors for him.

About halfway between Kashgar and the Pakistan border, we came across Lake Karakul. On its banks, a hut owned by local Kyrgyz herders provided some refuge from the howling wind. Our driver had heard stories that the Kyrgyz in this area were known to have helped authorities find a group of wanted Uyghurs who sought to cross the mountainous borders that surround the lake.

Further down the road in Tashkurgan, he told us a similar story about the local Tajik community, highlighting how tense relations can be between the various ethnic groups in this part of China. On the Chinese side nearer the country’s border with Tajikistan, this Persian-Tajik community speaks a different language to their ethnic brethren across the border.

Our driver became tenser the closer we got to the border regions. The area is very ethnically diverse, and the languages used are neither Mandarin nor his native Uyghur. Security is also a more visible concern, with regular army posts visibly stamping Beijing’s dominance. The notably empty town Karasu marks the Chinese side of the Kulma Pass, the way into Tajikistan. A brand-new customs post sits awaiting business with plastic still covering most of the furniture inside the building.

At Daptar, our driver was hesitant to stop. Another Pamir village, it is home to the last civilian inhabitants on the Chinese side of the Afghan border. Off in the distance, a ‘V’ in the mountains denotes where the Wakhan Corridor runs into Afghanistan. Locals were clearly on high alert given their location and the road that leads to the border with Afghanistan is a poor brother to the spotless and new Karakoram Highway. Here the highway is festooned with cameras, tracking the progress of all non-military vehicles. In the vicinity and visible from the road, large stone writing on the sides of hills instructs in Mandarin, “Protect the border; protect the country; protect the people.”

The Chinese side of the Karakoram Highway comes to an abrupt halt at the Khunjerab Pass, at the top of a hillock, leading to a more dilapidated path on the Pakistani side. White markers define the border and an imposing arch emblazoned with the Communist Party of China symbol straddles the road. On a previous visit there, a gaggle of Chinese domestic tourists eagerly took photographs of one another. One middle-aged woman decided she wanted to explore Pakistan for herself. An agitated young private from Hubei in distant central China whom we had been chatting with frantically ordered her back. But she waved him off with “mei guanxi (no worries)”, eager to explore for herself. Having noted disappointedly that the Pakistani guards were not leaving their hut that day, she returned to Chinese soil.

The locals tell stories of those who try to cross the border permanently, how they often lose their way in the snow amongst isolated peaks. At more than 4,000 metres, the border itself seems more porous than it likely is. Long empty valleys lead to rugged, snow-capped mountains with no clear fence to demarcate one side from the other. Recently, there has been a spike in Chinese concerns about security across the border, something reflected in our Uyghur driver’s attitude as we got closer. He became quieter and more visibly tense, only really calming down when we got back to Tashkurgan and sat down to dinner. Back here at a strategic peak in the middle of a valley leading to Pakistan, it was easier to objectively consider our journey along the Karakoram Highway, through the patchwork of peoples along the route binding two close allies together. The nations it brings together may be ‘higher than the mountains’ but for those living in the valleys, the differences remain strong.

Chinese Traces in Gorno-Badakhshan

Posted: July 26, 2012 in China in Central Asia
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A new post over at China in Central Asia, the site I am managing as part of my large long-term project looking at Chinese influence and interest in Central Asia. This time about a part of Tajikistan where trouble has recently erupted which we visited earlier this year. More on this topic as our project progresses, including some more about our impressions of the security situation there.

Chinese Traces in Gorno-Badakhshan

by Raffaello Pantucci

Lenin greets visitors to Murghab, Gorno-Badakhshan, Tajikistan

Attention has been focused in Tajikistan’s Gorno-Badakhshan region this week, as a government operation in retaliation for the murder of a Major General Abdullo Nazarov, a senior intelligence official, has been launched in the region’s Pamir Mountains. While the regional capital Khorog has apparently now re-opened for business, it seems as though hostilities continue in the mountains.

Earlier this year, we made a trip to this part of Tajikistan, on our way through to the Kulma Pass, Tajikistan’s border post with China. Closed to anyone but Chinese or Tajik passport holders, we instead went right up to the border on either side, driving from Kashgar to Tashkurgan, pausing at Kara Suu to see the brand new border post that has been built on the Chinese side of the Kulma Pass and sat empty waiting for business. It was a crystal clear day, with the border post and army base next to it seemingly abandoned. From what we could see on the Tajik side, nothing was stirring.

Once we got over to the Tajik side a couple of weeks later, it was a largely similar experience but with worse roads. Having made a two-day trip from Dushanbe with an overnight in Khorog, we got to the village of Murghab and asked our baffled host to drive us straight out to the border. With a shrug he fired up his jeep, got his son moving and off we went. The bumpy road across the moonscape had seen better days. According to our driver, the road had been built by a Turkish firm with Aga Khan money years earlier, and while there are stories that the Chinese are meant to be rebuilding it, there was little evidence of this on display.

On the Tajik side, there were numerous other markers of Chinese presence. We found at least two Chinese-Tajik truck stops, and scattered amongst the rocks were smashed bottles of Wusu beer (a Xinjiang specialty). A place we stopped for lunch had 食堂 (canteen) written on the side of the building and an aid convoy apparently going deeper into the Pamirs was made up of half a dozen large white trucks with white Chinese writing emblazoned across them. Most impressive of all was a Chinese tomb that we found outside Bash Gumbaz – a small village in between Khorog and Murghab. According to all the guide books, this ‘marked the high tide of Chinese influence on the Pamir’ – and after much research I have been able to find very little much more information out about it than this. The Kyrgyz farmer who took the time the take us out to the site enjoyed himself on the way back telling us about how there were Kyrgyz all over the Wakhan and how they had bravely fought the Chinese off centuries before.

Back in Khorog we wandered around the region’s capital, staring across the river that separates the city from Afghanistan. The same river acts as a border for much of the Tajik-Afghan border and during the high summer months it is apparently largely dried up, making it easy to cross from one country to the other. When one pairs this with the rather limited security we saw – occasional teams of three young conscripts trudging along with AK-47s slung on their backs – it is easy to see why this is not considered a particularly tight border and how easy it would be to transit drugs from Afghanistan into Tajikistan in the area. This also helps provide a bit of explanation as to why Chinese investment in the roads in the area has been slow. For China, the unstable region is also not likely to provide a huge market for products (Gorno-Badakhshan has a population of about 200,000, the whole country about 7.5 million), and does not provide a road link to anywhere particularly useful. Instead, Chinese- built roads go to the north through Kyrgyzstan from Kashgar, bringing them right into a road network that goes to Russia, Uzbekistan and beyond that Europe.

Break Up Time for Pakistan, China?

Posted: June 8, 2012 in Diplomat
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A new piece for a new outlet, The Diplomat which is an excellent magazine and site that covers Asia-Pacific affairs. This one focuses on China-Pakistan relations, a fascinating subject that plays quite a bit into considerations on the other subject I have been looking at in some detail, China-Afghanistan. I also want to use this opportunity to highlight some media stuff I have done. I did an interview for Voice of America ahead of the SCO Summit and what it means for SCO involvement in Afghanistan, as well as an interview for the Christian Science Monitor on China-Afghanistan.

Break Up Time for Pakistan, China?

Chinese and Pakistani officials often talk in lofty terms about the proximity of their relationship. “Higher than mountains, deeper than oceans, sweeter than honey, stronger than steel and dearer than eyesight” is the official characterization, and Chinese or Pakistani researchers will often say how they are welcomed like brothers when they visit their respective countries.

A story last week in the Pakistani press, however, seemed to belie this, stating that Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi had declined to move a meeting with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari to Karachi, forcing the president to rapidly reschedule his trip to be in Islamabad to meet with Yang. Whatever the accuracy of this specific story, there has been a noticeable tenseness in relations between Beijing and Islamabad, indicating that things may not be as rosy as they are sometimes portrayed.

At an official level, it seems clear that both sides are eager to maintain a visible proximity. In the wake ofZardari’s visit to India earlier this year, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told the press that it was “our best friend China….[who] advised us to promote trade relations with India.” And from a Chinese perspective, during a visit last December on behalf of President Hu Jintao during a ceremony to mark 60 years of “China-Pakistan Friendship” State Councilor Dai Bingguo declared: “It is believed that happiness, when shared by two, will be doubles, suffering, when shared by two, will be halved…[Pakistan is] an iron core” friend of China.

Yang added to this recently when he stated: “the China-Pakistan strategic partnership of cooperation, marked by all-weather friendship and all-round cooperation, has become an example for harmonious coexistence and friendly cooperation.”

But beneath the rhetoric, there have been a number of divergences from the official line. Back in August of last year, after an incident in Kashgar in which six people were killed, the local government issued a statement in which they said that an “initial probe” indicated that the leader of the plot had been trained in Pakistan. This was seemingly confirmed a month later when the Turkestan Islamic Movement (TIP) released a video showing the alleged leader, Memtieli Tiliwaldi, training at a camp they claimed was in Waziristan.

A subsequent investigation cleared Pakistan of responsibility, but the impression of Chinese concern over its South Asian neighbor was emphasized again when in early March, Xinjiang Chairman Nur Bekri highlighted the “countless” links between terrorists in the province and “neighboring country” Pakistan. This came after more than a dozen people were killed in another stabbing spree in Yecheng County, just south of Kashgar. And then in April, the Public Security Ministry released a wanted notice for six individuals who it referred to as having links to “a South Asian” country and being members of “East Turkestan groups.”

While the statements from the Xinjiang government likely reflected anger at a local level in the province, the statement from a central government ministry was a different thing, showing that this concern was something that extended beyond Xinjiang security officials. Xinjiang’s proximity to Pakistan and its restive Uighur Muslim population make it a prime candidate for links to extremists in Pakistan – stories in the Chinese press about the Yecheng incident emphasized the cities’ proximity to Pakistan – but usually the central government is wary of pointing fingers directly at Pakistan.

But beyond Xinjiang, we have also seen a retraction from Pakistan of Chinese official business interests. Back in September last year, Chinese coal mining company Kingho withdrew from bidding for a development in Thar, Pakistan. What was most striking was that when the firm talked to the press subsequent to the decision, the Wall Street Journal reported a company official openly stating that it was a result of the negative security situation.

Then, in March, the state owned Chinese bank ICBC withdrew its support from financing a gas pipeline from Iran to Pakistan. It did not specify why. And while China recently announced that it would buy out all other stakeholders in ownership of the Gwadar Port, it’s still unclear when the port is going to gain tractions. Completed in 2007 with largely Chinese funding, the port is advertised as a sign of Sino-Pakistan friendship, but languishes unused as other regional ports are moving to overtake it as potential seaports for Central Asia’s rich resources.

All of which paints a very different picture of the public face that China and Pakistan like to project about their friendship and alliance. Both governments clearly want to keep up good appearances.  It is, however, increasingly clear that there is a high level of concern in China about Pakistan. In Xinjiang in particular they seem to have lost patience at Pakistani capacity to contain Uighur extremists travelling to train in Pakistan and then coming back.

Pakistan, for its part, is clearly aware of these problems. In the wake of incidents last year, Zardari visited Urumqi for the first China-Eurasia Expo. Preceding him was ISI head Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha who visited Beijing, presumably to discuss, amongst other things, problems in Xinjiang.

Whether this kind of contact will be enough, though, is unclear. Beijing may be Pakistan’s best friend, but even best friends can eventually lose their patience with each other.

Raffaello Pantucci is a visiting scholar at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences.

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